John Madden

From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.

John Madden first rose to fame as coach of the Oakland Stompers of the now-defunct NAFL (North American Football League). Although the team only existed for one year, Madden's behavior during post-game press conferences won him lasting notoriety. His antics included yelling "BAM", "BOOM", "WHAP" and similar words at random times; constantly pointing out the blatantly obvious; and declaring (player by player over the course of the season) that every player on the Stompers was a "blood-and-guts player, a throwback to the old days when real men played football like real men".

After the Stompers moved to Canada, Madden was approached by executives at CBS about announcing football for them. Surprisingly, Madden's confusing commentary and incessant shouting became popular with sports fans. As a result, Madden was quickly hired away by Fox to announce for their radical new sport, indoor soccer. When Fox's league folded after only 3 games, Madden joined the crew of Monday Night Football where he remained for several years.

In the early 1990's Madden's career took a sharp turn as he was hired by EA Sports as chief developer of sports-themed video games. At the time, leaving Monday Night Football to drive around the country in a trailer hawking games seemed like a terrible move. Over time, though, video game fans took a liking to the Madden games and sales steadily increased. Today, thanks to exclusive licensing deals with football, baseball, the Olympics and poker, Madden titles are the top-selling sports-themed video game titles on Earth. In 2005, over 4000 Madden games were sold netting EA Sports nearly $100,000 in revenue. John Madden himself, however, remains humble and lovable.